


Underneath My Lucid Skin

by poisontaster



Series: Every Broken Thing [20]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Grieving Dean, Grieving Sam, M/M, Post-Season/Series 01, Sam Has Powers, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-08
Updated: 2006-05-08
Packaged: 2018-05-11 18:51:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5638048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Old Yellow Eyes left scars on both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Underneath My Lucid Skin

**Author's Note:**

> This was written during the hiatus between S1 & 2 and thus is not canon compliant. Just play along.

_Time here all but means nothing, just shadows that move 'cross the wall_  
_They keep me company, but they don't ask of me, they don't say nothing at all._  
_And I need just a little more silence_  
_And I need just a little more time_  
_But you send your thieves to me, silently stalking me, dragging me into your war_  
_Would you give me no choice in this? I know you can't resist, trying reopen a sore_

_Leave me be, I don't want to argue, I'd just get confused and I'd come all undone_  
_If I agree, well, it's just to appease you, cause I don't remember what we're fighting for_

\--"Time" by Sarah McLachlan

 

 

"He's out back," Bobby offers finally, on Dean's third agitated circuit around the house. And the thing is, Dean can remember a time when it would've made him angry; but now there's only emptiness and the aching tightness in his chest that threatens to strangle the breath in his throat at any moment. He nods stiffly and walks out into the sunshine, raising a hand against its glare. Mojo, the new dog, bounds up, dancing around his ankles. Dean unhooks his chain from the side of the house and wraps it around his wrist.

'Out back' actually encompasses a lot of real estate; Bobby's salvage business as well as the thin beard of scrubby second-growth forest that surrounds it. Dean has to walk for a while, around and around, until he actually finds Sam. By the time he does, he's winded and sore but it's not until he actually _sees_ Sam that he can cut back on some of the low-level panic buzzing at the back of his mind. He plants a hand against a sapling, the other on his knee and half-hunches, breathing. Mojo, who can smell Sam, tugs impatiently, whining softly in his throat.

Sam is standing still in the calf-high grass, his shoulders a single clenched line and his hands fisted at his sides. He is staring into the woods. Dean doesn't understand and so he lets a twig crack under his boot to let Sam know that he's there. Sam twitches, his hands falling out of their taut configurations, but he doesn't move. Dean walks up to him and nudges him with one shoulder. "What?"

He doesn't like the sound of his voice now, soft and scraped and so he uses it as little as he can and even then, only with Sam. Doesn't seem like there's much worth saying anyway.

Sam shakes his head, a rueful half-smile crooking his lips "Practice," he says and Dean looks over to see the weather smoothed gray stump of an old oak, now covered in a litter of random objects scavenged from the lot. Dean looks a question, but apparently not the right one, because Sam gives off this cracked laugh and says, "I think I wiggled the bolt a little bit." He bends and offers Mojo his hand to sniff then scratches the dog's ruff.

Dean looks at the collection of things—screws and bolts, a horseshoe, a couple bottles of brown glass, a flat rock the size of his palm, shiny with flecks of mica—and feels cold wash over him in a wave as he understands.

_Here. Make the gun float to you there, Psychic Boy…_

Dean is frozen by it; the memory, the realization, the sickening black sinkhole of his fear. Sam doesn't really notice, by now used to talking over Dean's silences and half-lost in his own train of thought anyway. "I can _feel_ it," Sam says, contemplative. "I felt it then. It's…it's right _there_ and I…" Sam looks up, blinking, and Dean notices Sam's pupils are blown wide despite the bright clarity of the sunlight, like he's drugged, like he's out of his mind. Then Sam shakes his head again, eyelashes sweeping down. "I just can't _get there._ "

 _No_ , Dean wants to say. _Absolutely not._

But if those words have ever worked on Sam, they sure as hell don't any more. Sam is John Winchester's son in full and sometimes when he squints the right way at the right moment or glances from the corner of his eye, Dean thinks he can see the ghost of the old man standing behind Sam like a shadow. Dean's tried things like renewing the salt across the windowsills and thresholds and drawing the tiny protective symbols he learned from that Navajo girl in the corners of Sam's room, around the bed, but nothing helps.

Dean's starting to think it's really all in his own head, because he can _hear_ Dad say, "You use whatever weapon's at hand, son. If it keeps you and your brother safe, use whatever you have to."

And it…it's just too much. He's not ready for this yet.

"I'm sorry," Sam's saying. He's still petting Mojo and not looking at Dean. "I didn't mean to be gone so long; I know…I know you worry."

Dean's jaw and back stiffen, but it's not like he can exactly deny it even if he was so inclined. Instead, he tugs on Mojo's chain and walks back to the house.

"Dean—" Sam calls halfheartedly, but he doesn't follow.

Dean makes it as far as the dusty and barren space that passes as Bobby's back yard before he has to sit down, sliding down the hood and grille of one of Bobby's many junked pickups to the ground. Mojo sniffs Dean's elbow wetly, sneezes and then flops down in the dirt next to Dean, head resting on Dean's thigh. Dean buries his fingers in the dog's ruff, feeling the warmth of Mojo's skin.

***

The sun's going down and Sam's about halfway back to the house when he falls. Just…falls; crashes to his knees. The impact goes through him like a shockwave, twisting in his stomach. He puts out his hands to catch himself and vomits.

The low-grade throb in his temples that had pushed him to quit for the day suddenly blares loud and agonizing, shards of metal and glass, sound and fury piercing his head, his skull, his brain and eyes until it encloses him in red walls of pain that he can't escape.

"Sam?" He hears Dean's voice; too loud, but also sounding the most like himself that Sam's heard in weeks. _"Sam?"_

At once, Dean is there, skidding and sliding to his knees, his hands anchoring Sam when Sam thinks it might be easier and less painful to just float away. "Sammy…talk to me. Sammy--" Dean's fingers push Sam's hair back from his face and Sam whimpers as the late afternoon sun stabs into his eyes.

"Please," he whispers, afraid anything louder might make his head actually explode. Sam turns his face into his own shoulder and feels the sleeve of his shirt dampen with the sweat standing out on his face.

Dean puts his shoulder under Sam's and then he's hauling Sam upright, even though Sam knows he's not in fit condition to be dragging anyone anywhere. Sam tries to stand on his own, but his knees aren't having it. And so he resigns himself to the two of them staggering into the house like drunks. Dean dumps Sam in one of the kitchen chairs—a jolt that makes Sam's stomach roil greasily again—and then collapses to his knees in front of Sam, panting.

"What…?" Dean's hand is on Sam's thigh, kneading slightly. Sam doesn't think Dean's really aware of it. He's become a lot more tactile since the demon. Since Dad. Since he got so quiet. Not just with Sam; he wanders around Bobby's like a blind man, touching the walls, the furniture, the dog.

"I think…" Sam presses his thumb and forefinger in the inner orbit of his eyes, as if he can just _dig_ the pain out. Which…God, if that was only true. "I think I just…overexerted myself."

Dean comes up between Sam's spread knees and pushes his hands through Sam's hair, fingers searching out the pulse points and massaging. Sam feels something pushing up in his throat again and he grabs Dean's forearms to push him back, thinking he's going to puke a second time, but what comes out instead is a sob.

He hasn't cried. Not over Dad, or Dean or even the Impala. He's wanted to, wanted it like you want to throw up when you're hung over; knowing it'll make you feel better—if only for a moment—and get some of the poison out of your system. But he hasn't cried. He can't.

He's crying now; like he did before…before all of this. When all of this was only his fears and not a very pointed reality. Before they were all that was left. Hard, hysterical sobs that hurt as they claw their way out of him. His head aches like he's going to die, and his whole body hurts and throbs and he just. Can. Not. Stop. Crying.

Dean abandons the massage and instead just puts his arms around Sam, fitting into Sam's body the way he always has. "Shh," Dean whispers. And, "Sammy…"

But, no. This is wrong. Sam's supposed to be the one taking care of Dean, his turn to shoulder the burdens that Dean's been bearing for all this time…it's _his_ turn…

"No." Dean's arms tighten around him, and Sam realizes he's said the words out loud. "No."

There are layers to that 'no'; Sam can hear them now, attuned to parsing everything he can out of what little Dean has left to give him; but he doesn't know what they mean. And he just doesn't have it in him to ask.

"Dean—" In whispers, still both of them in whispers. Anything louder would just be… "Please. I need… I gotta lie down."

Dean helps him to his feet again and into the bedroom, every step an agony of light and abrasive movement. When he's down on the bed's edge, Sam doesn't even have to say anything; Dean undresses him like a little kid, his fingers as kind and careful as they are on the Impala. Freedom from the scrape and chafe of his jeans and shirt brings a new wave of tears and almost-sickness and Sam almost wishes he could float above the blankets as well, to have nothing touching him but the cool air.

And Dean. Always Dean.

Dean coaxes Sam flat to the bed and Sam goes without any resistance, stripped of anything resembling pride. With his eyes shut, he can track it as Dean gets the squat yellow waste can from the corner of the room and puts it next to the bed, in easy reach. He can also hear when Dean's weight shifts, not towards the bed, but towards the door and he knows Dean has turned to go. Sam risks another lightning bolt of pain to reach out and seize Dean's wrist. "Please," he says again.

Dean says nothing, but he strips down to his boxers and gingerly crowds next to Sam in the bed. He holds still and lets Sam move around him, finding the position that hurts the least while giving them maximum skin to skin contact. Sam buries his face in Dean's shoulder and shivers slightly with each caress of Dean's hand up and down the line of his spine.

"I gotta sleep," Sam says, though he doesn't know if he really can. "I just…don't leave me, okay?" His chest hurts just saying it, like broken glass grinding, but he just… Sam doesn't stay so close to Dean just for Dean's benefit.

Dean kisses the crown of his head and Sam closes his eyes. Because it's enough.

***

"No," Dean says, when Sam gets up to go back out to the field the next day. He locks his fingers around Sam's wrist and tries to make Sam understand. He _has_ words, but they all are pressed thin and flat under this weight that he doesn't know how to move. They aren't _his_ any more. And so what he has is just his body, which isn't enough. Not for Dad, not for the Impala, and now apparently not for Sam. "No," he says again, desperately, the only thing he _can_ say.

Sam stops on the threshold, half between inside and out, half between dimness and light. Dean can tell Sam's still in pain, held in the tight bunched lines around his eyes and the careful, stiff line of his back. But he's going to go anyway.

Sam sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly. He'd slept only fitfully, twitching and moaning the whole night through while Dean had held him, waking only long enough to blink up into Dean's face as if to make sure that Dean was indeed still there. He's in no fit state for this, another argument that Dean can't quite articulate to him.

"I have to," Sam says finally. He looks up at Dean, his eyes shadowed. "I… It would have killed you, Dean."

"No," Dean says a third time and this time he means something entirely different. He lets go of Sam and starts to turn his back, walk away, but Sam grabs him, pulling him back.

"It would have killed you," Sam says again, low and urgent against Dean's ear. He's pressed against Dean's back, holding Dean in place with just the one hand on his shoulder. "And I couldn't. Do. Anything. If Dad…"

"Don't," Dean begs, the word hurting on the way out, but Sam's already breaking off.

"I tried," Sam says instead, his voice flawing unsteadily. "I tried so hard, Dean, but I just… I just couldn't. I have all this..." He shakes his head and Dean feels Sam's hair tickle the back of his head, that's how close they're standing. "I have this power and I don't know what to do with it. How to use it. I'm…I'm afraid of it. But next time…"

Dean can't hear any more. He pulls out of Sam's hands, hard enough that he hears his shirt rip. He goes into the living room and sits down in Bobby's recliner, head bent into the cradle of his hands. A moment later, the screen door scrapes and whines open and closed.

***

Sam wishes he had a pair of sunglasses. It's another excruciatingly bright day and every twinkle of the sun sends daggers into his brain and makes spots of contrasting darkness float at the edge of his vision. When his hand comes up to push his hair out of his eyes, it's shaking and seems to trail rainbow ghosts of itself.

He's been in the sun less than fifteen minutes and he's already sweating.

Still, he knows that he's got to screw his courage to the sticking place. Dad and Dean never give _(gave)_ up, no matter how hurt they are _(were)_ ; he can't do any less than that, especially if it ends up saving Dean's life. Fuck, especially then.

Sam carefully and deliberately blots the image and sound of Dean pinned to the wall from his mind and narrows his focus to a single octagonal bolt, light glinting from its surface like razor blades. In his mind, he hears—oddly enough—Uma Thurman, saying calmly: _wiggle your big toe._

***

Dean works on the Impala all day, until his fingertips and knuckles are bloody and gashed. The new door is primer ugly, like a scar, and they still haven't been able to find a front panel but she's starting to come together. He can _see_ her between the lines.

Work on the car is both a blessing and a curse; a blessing because he doesn't have to think, as his hands drift from one task to the next, repairing, taping, replacing. A curse because—without the need to focus on the job at hand—his brain only plays tape loops of the same words and phrases over and over:

_Make the gun float to you there, Psychic Boy…_

_If it keeps you and your brother safe, use whatever you have to._

_I can_ feel _it. I felt it then. It's…it's right_ there… And, _I have this power and I don't know what to do with it. How to use it. I'm…I'm afraid of it._

Sam isn't the only one afraid.

Not of his powers; Dean's never been afraid of that, or Sam. Dean doesn't even know what name to give to his fear. He only knows that it's there, low lying and apt to tangle him at unexpected moments like a snare. It's been there since he looked into his father's face and saw nothing human looking out, his last clear memory. It hasn't gone away since and sometimes Dean wonders if this is just another kind of scar, something he'll have to learn to live with.

He hears Bobby coming before Bobby kicks him in the foot to get his attention. Dean slides out from under the car and sits up, wiping his hands on his already filthy jeans. Bobby's got the squinty eyed, tight-lipped look that means he's worried about something and Dean feels his chest tighten a little more.

"Dog's barking," Bobby says tersely. "You seen your brother lately?"

Dean gropes for the gun he'd left hidden behind the Impala's driver side tire and shakes his head. Bobby holds out his hand and helps haul Dean to his feet. "Well, you go find him; I'ma take Mojo and walk around. See what's the what."

Dean nods, already halfway to gone.

He goes straight to the field where he found Sam before and finds him again, this time collapsed in the grass, bloodless and white. Dean has no memory of crossing the intervening space; just suddenly being at Sam's side, frantically searching out his pulse and not breathing until he finds it.

Oh God. Oh _God_.

But it's there, beating strong and steady under Dean's fingertips. Sam looks unhurt, or rather, no more hurt than before; searching through Sam's hair—longer than ever, damn him—Dean finds no blood, no bruising, no disquieting soft spots. There is only this strange unconsciousness.

Dean wets his lips with his tongue, then reaches and grabs Sam's earlobe, twisting and digging his short nails in the flesh as hard as he can. There are a lot of really really sensitive nerves in the ear. Sam's eyes fly open so fast it seems like they might pop out of their sockets and Dean's breath catches. " _Fuck_ , Dean, what…?"

Then Sam's expression changes—sick, pain, horror—and he flips over onto his belly to throw up in the grass.

***

It's worse this time. So much worse; Sam can't speak, can't even _think_ as Bobby and Dean carry him back to the house and put him to bed. Everything aches. Especially his head. His brain, oh God, his _brain_ hurts.

Time passes and he doesn't know how much, a haze of puking illness, racking shudders, and cold water baths and compresses. After the third or fourth time that exposure to even the weakest light triggers off another fit of nausea, Dean rigs a blindfold and Sam cries into it in grateful relief.

 _Let me die,_ he thinks and he doesn't mean it, except he does, because _godjesusfuckdamn_ death would be so sweet compared to this horrible pulsing agony that just…won't go away and won't soften no matter how many painkillers Dean forces down his throat. Before, with pain, he'd always been able to go somewhere in his mind. This time the pain is _in_ his mind and there's nowhere to go.

"I moved it, though," he whispers at some point, when Dean is massaging the back of his neck and pressing a cold washcloth between his shoulder blades. He spits, bile sour, into the garbage can. "Not much, but…"

"Shh," Dean tells him. But he leans forward and presses his lips against Sam's shoulder, too fast to hurt.

***

"Well," Missouri says to the silence at Dean's end of the line, "I was wondering how long it was going to take you to call."

Dean looks down at his feet. One of his socks has a hole; his big and second toes are starting to peek through.

Missouri sighs. "It's not like learning to shoot a gun or…or…kung-fu or whatever it is that you boys do. He can't just beat his brain into submission. It's…well, it's an _art_ , that's what it is."

Dean hoists himself up on the kitchen counter, a move that pulls on the few stitches he's got left. His heels drum worriedly at the kitchen counter as he waits for Missouri to talk again.

"I swear," Missouri says tartly after a few moments, "I wonder how you and … How you boys have survived as long as you have." Dean's hand closes hard on the plastic of the phone's receiver. "Look," Missouri sounds kinder, softer, "I know you're all tangled up now, but you can't keep going on like this. You father wouldn't want it, your brother doesn't need it and putting your head in the sand ain't gonna help nobody. You can't just bury your head and hope it's goin' to overlook you."

Dean doesn't realize he's holding his breath until it starts to hurt, doesn't realize how tightly his off hand is fisted in his lap until he feels blood drip onto his jeans.

"Oh baby, I wish I could," Missouri says, just as if Dean had spoken. "But it's not like a 'one size fits all' T-shirt. Sam's powers…" She sighs. "Well, Sam's powers are just very different from mine."

_So what do I do?_

"I'm not going to lie to you, Dean. Sam _needs_ training and fast. Right now, he's wide open and shining like a bonfire for every dark, crawling thing that wants to come your way. You boys come down here, soon as you can. Some things I can show Sam. Enough, hopefully, to get you by until you can find a better teacher. Someone like Sam."

Dean opens his hand and looks at the four crescent moons carved there before they well up scarlet and blurry.

"Yes, you can," Missouri's asperity returns. "You and I both know ain't nothing you won't do for that boy if he needs it and I'm telling you now—Sam needs this. He needs you."

Dean's eyes close.

"Dean—" Missouri takes a deep breath. "Look, you just get here. I got some words for you, too."

Dean snorts.

***

Sometimes, in the dark, it's almost like having Dean back again. Sam is reminded of an old story he read once of a man cursed to be a bear by day and only human again in the hours of darkness and then only if he remained unseen.

The pain's receded enough that he can think again, though the blindfold still protects his eyes. He'll put his head against Dean's chest or his fingers against the warm column of Dean's throat and listens/feels as they talk.

_I don't want you to._

_There's going to be a next time, Dean. We both know it. The demon will come back for us, and…and if it's something I can use, then I'm damn well going to use it._

_Sam, I… I'm scared._

_Scared…of me?_

_No. Sam, no. Just… I don't know._

_I'm here, Dean. I'm right here._

_I don't know what to do, Sam. I don't…_

_We'll figure it out. We'll fix the car and we'll figure it out. You and me._


End file.
